Selling for nearly €850 a cup, a café in Dubai is offering the world’s most expensive coffee, brewed from Panamanian beans sold at a premium price.
The wealthy emirate is known for its extravagant ventures including an enormous mall with an indoor ski area, the world’s tallest building and an artificial island dotted with five-star hotels.
“We felt Dubai was the perfect place for our investment,” said Serkan Sagsoz, co-founder of the Julith café with the pricey offering.
Located in an industrial neighbourhood that has become a hotspot for coffee lovers, Julith planned to serve “around 400 cups” of the precious beverage as from last Saturday, Sagsoz said.
For a price tag of 3,600 dirhams (€849.5), the brew offers an experience of floral and fruity flavours reminiscent of tea.
“There are white floral notes like jasmine, citrus flavours like orange and bergamot and a hint of apricot and peach,” said Sagsoz, who previously ran a café in his native Turkey.
“It’s like honey, delicate and sweet,” he said.
Dubai notched a Guinness record for the world’s most expensive cup of coffee last month, when Roasters offered one for 2,500 dirhams (circa €590).
The new record staggered some people, though residents also said it was par for the course for the desert city with a luxury lifestyle.
“It’s very shocking but at the same time, it’s Dubai,” said Ines, who did not give her last name.
“For wealthy people, it’s just another experience they can boast about,” added another resident, Maeva.
“For wealthy people, it’s just another experience they can boast about”
The Julith café bought its beans at an auction in Panama after a tough battle that lasted many hours and drew hundreds of bids.
It claimed to have paid the highest price ever for coffee.
Twenty kilograms of the beans went for around 2.2 million dirhams, or around €519,400, Julith said in a press release.
Asian buyers, Emirati coffee enthusiasts and coffee bean collectors have since reached out to the café in the hopes of securing some of the “Nido 7 Geisha” beans, which are grown on a plantation near Panama’s Baru volcano.
But the café said it does not plan to share its treasure, beyond a small amount reserved for Dubai’s ruling family.
